Pililitteri Estates Vidal Ice Wine, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada 2020 (£13.99, Lidl) In the battle of the two German discounters, Aldi, which recently overtook Morrisons to become the UK’s fourth-largest supermarket group, may have consolidated its position as the biggest on these shores. But Lidl – which leapfrogged the Co-op to become the UK’s sixth-largest supermarket in March and which, according to market researchers Kantar, has been having its best year of sales since 2014 – is the fastest-growing. When it comes to wine, both have been putting the squeeze on their rivals’ prices for years, with the cost-of-living crisis further focusing Tesco et al on wines at around a fiver. But, as I wrote about Aldi after tasting their range back in April, neither discounter is solely focused on the bottom end of wine pricing. Certainly, Lidl’s Christmas selection, which goes into stores this week, has a fair few bottles with special-occasion prices, such as the marvellously mango-and-lychee-scented sticky Ice Wine.
Château de Landiras Graves, Bordeaux, France 2019 (£10.99, Lidl) Making ice wine, a Canadian speciality borrowed from the German and Austrian tradition of making “eiswein” from grapes harvested so late they have frozen on the vine, is an expensive process, since the yield from the frozen shrivelled grapes is necessarily much smaller than those harvested earlier in the year. In the context, then, that £14 for a bottle very much counts as a bargain. So, too, another of Lidl’s new Christmas stickies: Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos 2014 (£9.99), a typically butterscotch and marmalade-scented, tangy example of the golden Hungarian sweet wine made from grapes concentrated in sugar and flavour by the formation of the “noble rot” Botrytis. Other plus-£10 Lidl Christmas bottles worth a try while they’re in store over the next month or two include two well-made, well-priced examples of classic French styles: the appetisingly fresh brightly cassis-scented claret of Châtau de Landiras Graves, and the crisp, crunchy ripe red apple of Comte de Senneval Champagne Millésime 2014 (£19.99).
